Welcome to Crazytown

I have frizzy hair.  Please, please, you are too kind.  There is no need to protest in my hair’s defense.  I know I have frizzy hair.  The Hunch-Back Woman at the post-office told me so.  If anyone knows frizzy, it’s the Hunch-Back Woman with her I Dream of Jeannie couture, Sideshow Bob ‘do, and John Wayne Gacy clown make-up.

During a Starbucks Workday last week, I decided to take a brief study break and stop by the nearby post office to mail a package.  I pass this post office frequently and Hunch-Back Woman appears to be a permanent fixture. You can smell her before you see her — she’s fond of a particularly aromatic variety of maryjane.  In fact, if you stand downwind of her for a minute, you get just a little high.

Hunch-Back Woman usually stands at the door to the post office and opens it for the unsuspecting public like a mime playing a doorman except that the door is real.  And she is not silent.  I say “unsuspecting” because the last thing you expect as she holds the door open is to have her bellow the post office hours in your ear.  It’s a lovely customer service.  I don’t know why the post office didn’t think of it themselves.  It’s so much more convenient than having to review the hours plainly posted on the door.

What post office patrons could do without, however, is the colorful dressing down they receive if they ignore the nasty coffee-cup tip jar half filled with an unknown, grayish fluid she shakes in your face as you enter the building.  Hunch-Back Woman has quite a repertoire.  “Cheap bastard!” and “Dirty Whore” seem to be her favorites, but those epithets are usually reserved for the people who actually tip her.  Those who don’t tip her are often called much worse.  Her favorite — perhaps she is a fan of Mike Myers’s films — seems to be “Fat Bastard.” Every now and then I’ve heard her let loose with “Motherfucker!” but I think that special nickname is reserved for those who decide that facing off against Yucko the Hopheaded Clown is not on their Bucket List and decide to come back some other time.

On this particular day, I had already been tapped out of tips.  Figuring I would get a pass because I give Hunch-Back Woman change every time I see her, I offered a smile and a “Sorry.” Oh, yes, I was sorry.  Her pasted-on smile immediately transformed into one of Virgil’s Furies and I began to wonder if Hunch-Back Woman’s Wet & Wild Carnage Red lipstick was actually the bloody remnants of other non-tippers.  She sucked in enough air to demonstrate a lifetime of perfecting the art of inhalation before expelling a loud and vicious…

 
“FRIZZY!”
 

Um, what?  Frizzy?  Frizzy?!  I was stunned.  I was braced for “bitch” or worse, but not FRIZZY!  Is FRIZZY worse than Dirty Whore, Cheap Bastard, Twatwaffle, or all the other colorful euphemisms for men, women, sex acts, minorities, and homosexuals?  Because, believe me, I’ve heard her use almost all of them but I’ve never heard her use FRIZZY.  Self-consciously I reached up to touch my hair.  Had I forgotten to use my humidity resistant gel this morning?  I did switch conditioners, but this winter weather has really made.... 

Seeing my weakness she pounced on it. 

“Your hair is FRIZZY!  FRIZZY!  FRIZZY!  Hahahahah!  You have FRIZZY hair!”

I rushed past her into the post office lobby checking over my shoulder to make sure she wasn’t flying at me with VO5 and a hair net.  I seemed safe for the time being and the long lines at the post office almost assured me that she would be gone by the time I left.  And thank goodness, she was.

So, stamps in hand, my frizzy hair and I headed back to Starbucks.  About a block away, I felt a presence at my shoulder.  Oh, no, I thought.  I walked a little faster.  The shadow kept pace.  I slowed down.  So did the shadow.  I was trying to avoid a confrontation but apparently there was going to be one whether I liked it or not.  I quickly turned to face Hunch-Back Woman and was surprised to find that it wasn’t her.  My shadow was a thin, bespectacled, confused-looking man in colorful superhero tights and high-tops.  Thinking that maybe he was lost or needed some other assistance I asked, “Can I help you?” This man who two seconds before was walking close enough to give me a colonoscopy suddenly reared back and yelled, “YOU STINK!!”

What.

The.

Fuck?!

Surely he and Hunch-Back woman came from the same family shrub.  One root.  One branch.  Twice the crazy.  He repeated it again just in case I missed it at 180 decibels.  “YOU STINK!!”

This time I was ready. 

Me (in sweetest voice evah!):  Why thank you.  That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me all day.

Shrub:  No!  I said, you STINK!

Me (very sweet):  I heard you.  Again, you are too kind.

Shrub (getting frustrated and welling up with tears):  No, no, no, no!  I said —

Me (making myself choke with my own sweetie sweetness):  I know.  And you really are a doll but I must be running now.  You have a nice day!

Shrub (crying):  crycrycrycrycry

I don’t know what the lesson is from all of this.  Do I need to pay more attention to my personal hygiene?  Do I need to find a Starbucks that is not in Crazytown?  Or maybe I should just tape twenty-dollar bills to my packages and avoid the post office.  My packages will still get to their destinations, right?

Leave a comment....